t tact
congratulated Vanno. "I've got awfully fond of this dear girl," she
said, looking Vanno straight in the eyes, a way of hers when people had
to be impressed by a statement. "I think there's nobody like her, and
I--we--will miss her horribly. But you've a right to take her away. You
can see her more comfortably, and everything will be better at the
chaplain's than here. Quite a different atmosphere, I dare say! Only I
hope she won't forget us. I've tried to do my best for her."

As she said this, a mist softened her hard eyes, and she ingeniously
pushed the beginnings of tears back whence they came, with the lace edge
of her handkerchief, fearing damage to her lashes. As she did this,
Vanno noticed that her hands were extraordinarily secretive in shape and
gesture. It seemed to him that they contradicted the expression of her
decorative face, whose misty eyes and quivering lips had begun to disarm
him, even to make him wonder if he had partly misjudged her. The hands,
large and pale rather than white, appeared to curve themselves
consciously in an effort to look small, pretty, young, and aristocratic,
though they were in reality worn by nervousness, as if disappointments
and harsh, perhaps terrible, experiences had kept them thin and made
them old, though face and body had contrived to remain young. It was as
if things the woman had known and endured had determined to betray
themselves in some way, and had seized upon her hands. Suddenly it was
as if Vanno had been given a key, and had heard a whisper: "This unlocks
the secret of a woman's nature"; and he was almost ashamed of having
used the key, even for an instant, as if he had peeped into a room where
some one in torment was writhing in silent passion. He said nothing of
this, afterward, but he could not forget; and when Mary half guiltily
praised Lady Dauntrey's warmth of heart and real affection, he was even
more glad than before to take the girl away. He was glad, too, that
Angelo and Marie would meet her for the first time at the Winters', not
in the Dauntrey menage.

To-day he did not dash off in a taxi to Cap Martin; but having taken
Mary and a small instalment of her luggage to the Winters' apartment,
sheer joy of life urged him to walk to his brother's. He was so happy
that he felt like a mountain spring let loose in wind and sunshine,
after being long pent up underground.

A short cut through the glimmering olive grove of the Cap led toward the
Vill